The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse

Yes, the plot is confusing, but this one has lots of atmospheric touches that make it fun. The highlight is the gorgeous Judy Tyler as a "fan dancer." She was loaded with confidence, energy and sex appeal - and was an excellent actress. What a shame that she was killed in a car accident not long after this was filmed.

There is another actress named Susan Cummings who, like Judy Tyler, wears streetwalker outfits beautifully and is the last word in 1950's glamour.

Also some good jazzy music, the delicious Minerva Urecal doing one of her classic "suspicious old broad/landlady" bits, and even a car crash scene involving Perry and Della in a Ford convertible, a Mexican peasant woman in an old 1940's car, and a speeding tailgater driving a gorgeous 1956 Lincoln Premier.

Oh for the days when fan dancers were the pinnacle of titulation! It really makes for some rather charming exchanges! It also allows one woman to wield short shorts like a weapon!

Perry and Della happen on a roadside wreck, discover some expensive ostrich plumes, and advertise for the owner. This sets off a strange set of events where two look-alike women (Cummings and Tyler) both claim to be the same woman, and an aggressive man (Sanders) claims Perry is hiding a horse, of all things. It's a pretty complicated plot, and I confess to getting lost at times. But that's okay because the main reason to catch this entry lies elsewhere. There's some good snappy dialogue from Tragg, while Perry gets snappy himself and cuts a few legal corners, at the same time. He's still an interesting character in these early episodes, before becoming the predictably model attorney of later entries.

Note too, from the byplay, how the writers still haven't decided exactly how to handle the relationship between the handsome Perry and the attractive Della. But that scene between Perry and Chi- Chi (Tyler) in her skin-tight leotards may be the most unabashedly sexual of the entire series, and I'm a bit surprised it passed the watchdogs of Standards and Practices. Be sure to focus on the star-crossed Judy Tyler who was tragically killed shortly after this episode and her co-starring role with Elvis in his classic Jailhouse Rock (1957). She's obviously quite talented, with a good career in the making. Sometimes it's hard to remember there are real people behind these make-believe roles, especially when they appear so full of life, as she does. What a shame.

The 15th episode of the first season of Perry Mason was the farewell performance of young Judy Tyler recently of Broadway, Elvis Presley and the Howdy Doody Show. She had one bright promising career and on this Perry Mason episode she showed a lot of verve and style as a Sally Rand like fan dancer.

It would almost seem like he's ambulance chasing but Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale are in fact just driving along and they witness an accident. That leads the whole crew into a story involving a stolen quarter horse, an estranged husband, and two women who look somewhat alike, one of whom is married to the estranged husband and becomes Burr's client and the other is Judy Tyler.

The story is a confused one, but this show breaks the paradigm somewhat in that the real perpetrator isn't discovered at trial. Burr knows who it is, but he lets William Talman figure it out on his own.

For a 9 year old late of the Howdy Doody Show by a few years the death of Princess Summerfallwinterspring was quite the childhood trauma. Judy really steals this Perry Mason show from the rest of the cast.

Like virtually all PM episodes, this one is full of poor writing (dialogue especially), very poor directing, and ridiculously twisted and unfathomable plot-lines. This one also has the aforementioned (by others here) Judy Tyler, whose spectacular overacting is anything but sexy or alluring (Susan Cummings wasn't any better). If she hadn't died shortly after this, I wonder if anyone would be extolling her acting abilities.